Movies Seen in 2012

A spy thriller set among Nobel prize laureates with Paul Newman in the main role. This film could have been so great, but unfortunately the characters have to make stupid decisions or act without thinking several times so that the plot can keep going. But it was still quite fun.

Watched the latest DC Animated film yesterday mornin'...I just went for the single disc release, instead of the two-disc, since I wasn't too concerned about a couple of extra episodes of Superman: The Animated Series.

Based off a comic story "What's so Funny about Truth, Justice and the American Way?", it tells the story of how Superman faces rejection from humanity when a new group of metahumans, the Elite, make themselves known. Led by a telekinetic named Manchester Black, the Elite don't just stop the bad guys, they kill 'em, and when Superman tries to stop 'em from bein' judge, jury & executioner, the Elite turn their sights on him.

I kinda liked it...though I wish it were longer, which is my one consistent complaint about DC Animated movies - just over an hour long, maybe an hour & a half if you're lucky, and that's it.

Went to a matinee showin' of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World before work last night. A road trip movie with Steven Carell & Kiera Knightley with quite a few cameos (as ya can see if ya watch the trailer). Really glad two appearances in particular weren't advertised. A friend of mine saw it over the weekend, said she didn't like it much, but it was pretty much what I expected to be watchin'.

John Ford's adaptation of John Steinbeck's Pulitzer-winning novel. It's a powerful piece of filmmaking, though not without flaws; at just over 2 hours its a fairly trim adaptation, which is a weakness in spaces (I expect if this was being done today it'd have at least another twenty minutes), mainly in the middle. One brother disappears without explanation along the journey, the departure of an in-law is hardly built up, and the whole situation around Casy's demise is too sudden (I also find John Carradine's interpretation of Casy a bit off). All that said, it's a very powerful piece of filmmaking, anchored by Jane Darwell's phenomenal performance as Ma Joad (she deservedly won Best Supporting Actress; I don't think it would be so big a stretch to argue that she's a Lead).

Marley & Me -- My girlfriend really wants a dog, but that's not going to happen until our living situation changes. Since that might be a while, she'll have to settle for puppy movies. That wasn't nearly the chore that I thought it would be, at least in this case. Oh, make no mistake, this movie has a couple of big problems (I'll get to that in a moment), but it also has a number of instances of surprising honesty, and a pair of leading comic performers (Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston) that are quite good. Plus, the dog, as you might expect from this sort of thing, is adorable.

There are two major flaws to the movie, though. Aniston's character succeeds because of her performance alone; the movie is based on the husband's real memoir, and it often sidelines the wife in favor of scenes with the husband and the dog. When she decides to quit her job as a journalist, it doesn't have much impact, because most of that has been taking place off screen. When John Grogan (Wilson) decides to take a job in Pennsylvania, it means leaving his acerbic editor (Alan Arkin) behind, and that leaves a much greater impression.

The second flaw is the story of John Grogan as a journalist. In the movie, he's constantly pining for the chance to be a real investigative journalist, but when he starts a family he ends up in the role of columnist and stays there for several years. When he finally moves and becomes that reporter he wanted to be, he's constantly trying to be a columnist again. In a better movie, this might be played as an interesting character flaw, but here it's just a thread that gets lost, because this is all about the dog, really. Given the source material, that's fine, but I can't help but feel that there's an even better movie hidden in here somewhere.

I don't know the series this film is based upon, so maybe it could have been good, but I found it quite bad. Bad story, sets, effects...
Well, to write something positive: I did like Grumpy the T-Rex. The film should have been about him hunting stupid humans.

...for me, this is one of those middle ground DC movies, not too bad, not too good. l like the fresh attempt to usher Supes into the 21st century by having him appear to take off the kid gloves. And it was good to hear George Newbern back as the voice behind the tights, even though he sounds exactly like Tim Daly.

...this is everything Natural Born Killers should have been, and more. Who knew Bobcat Goldthwait was such a good director? You should probably not watch this unless you have at least a little bit of hate for American pop culture. l am in awe of this movie.

Dominick Dunne: After The Party -- I didn't know who Dominick Dunne was before watching this film, but he certainly was an interesting fellow (he died in 2009).

Prometheus -- After putting it off for a couple weeks, I finally saw this. I liked it, but it's far short of the greatness of Scott's previous two sf films, and the problems begin and end with the script. The film's greatest asset is David, of course, who steals every scene he's in. It's a shame Theron's Vickers doesn't make it; despite being presented as the villain she's actually somewhat sympathetic. At times, the movie feels like it's trying to replicate the beats of the original film too closely (the final transmission, for example), but it's so visually interesting that it manages to stand on its own (although the creature design is rather unmemorable).

179. Adoration: (✩½) - Live TV - A boy mixes details of a terrorist plot with his own family's history and presents it as fact for a school assignment. This wasn't the easiest film to follow. Some of Atom Egoyan's films tend to be like that. I like films that step ouside the formula, but this one didn't grab me or hold my attention very well.

180. Love, Wedding, Marriage: (✩✩✩) - Live TV - A 28 year old psychologist has just gotten married, then finds out that her parents are getting a divorce. Disillusionment about marriage then sets in. Stars Mandy Moore. Not the strongest romantic comedy around, but it was watchable and I like Mandy Moore.

181. The Ghost Writer: (✩✩✩) - Live TV - A ghost writer is hired by a former British PM to polish up his autobiography. He's also dealing with a scandal due to something he did while in office. Along the way, secrets come out. Stars Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan. Great start, dragged in the middle and had a big finish.

182. 3000 Miles to Graceland: (✩✩✩½) - DVD - A group of Elvis impersonators rob a casino and make off with the money. All but two end up dead and one ends up chasing the other through the western U.S. In an attempt to get it. Stars Kevin Costner, Kurt Russell, Couteney Cox and Kevin Pollak. Christian Slater is also there, but not for long. The movie got a lot of bad reviews, but I enjoyed it. The story was disjointed, but it had some good atmosphere, in the same vein as a lot of drifter movies like Red Rock West. Not quite as raw or as cool, but it was there, so that's why I'm giving it a better grade than what it's been given by others. Also, the title will make sense in the last few seconds.

183. Spartacus: (✩✩✩✩) - Live TV - Finally saw this classic. A slave gladiator escapes with a few others and mounts an army to take down Rome. Stars Kirk Douglas. I didn't enjoy it as much as I did other classics like The Ten Commandments, but it was pretty good and I especially liked the romance/family sub plot. That had real heart.

184. Last Night: (✩✩✩) - DVD - A husband and wife each have an affair. Stars Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington. It's not insightful, but it's watchable.

185. Shutter Island: (✩✩✩) - DVD - Two agents go to an insane asylum on a remote island in order to investigate the disappearance of a patient. Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Ruffalo, Michelle Williams and Ben Kingsley. The movie wasn't that exciting, but it was alright. Plus, I saw the end twist and outcome a mile away.

186. Hereafter: (✩✩✩) - DVD - This movie moves around between three stories about death. One involves a woman who almost drowned in that big tsunami from a few years ago, one involves a pshychic who can talk to the dead, but doesn't want to use his abilities anymore, and another deals with a boy who lost his brother in a car accident. Eventually these three characters' lives converge. This is a movie full of unknown actors with the exception of Matt Damon who plays the psychic. It wasn't as good as the trailers made it seem, but it was engaging enough. It felt more like an independent movie than a glossy big budget motion picture. The tsunami scene had that big disaster movie look though.

187. Waitress: (✩✩✩) - Live TV - A small town waitress with an inconsiderate and sometimes abusive loser husband finds out she's pregnant and ends up having an affair with her doctor. Stars Keri Russell, Nathan Fillion and Jeremy Sisto. Another movie I'd describe as simply "watchable". The camera also liked to focus on Russell's beauty.

188. Bridesmaids: (✩✩✩✩) - DVD - Two bridesmaids compete to "win" the favor of their friend the bride. Stars Kristin Wiig, Maya Rudolf and Rose Byrne. Rose is the reason I got this movie, but Wiig turned out to be pretty good herself. I found this to be a pretty good comedy that wasn't stupid.

189. The Back-Up Plan: (✩✩✩) - Live TV - A career woman who doesn't have a man in her life decides to get pregnant by way of invitro. Then on the day she gets implanted, she meets a guy and they hit it off. Now she has to tell him that she's pregnant. Stars Jennifer Lopez and Alex O'Loughlin. Another watchable rom com that loses a little something halfway through.

190. Triage: (✩✩✩) - DVD - Two photojournalists are sent to war-torn Kurdistan and only one returns. Post traumatic stress disorder takes hold or our sole returnee, and his wife decides to get him help. Eventually, the story of what happened to the one who didn't return surfaces. Stars Colin Farrell, Paz Vega and Christopher Lee. It's a bit slow and plodding, but it's a good story and the stars deliver some decent performances, especially Farrell.

191. Easy A: (✩✩✩) - DVD - A high school girl lies to her friend about losing her virginity and the news spreads like wildfire. Liking the attention, she embraces her status as someone who sleeps around. It stars Emma Stone and was inspired by The Scarlett Letter. It's not the sharpest comedy around, but it's watchable and intentionally tame.

192. The Switch: (✩✩✩) - DVD - A woman wants to have a kid, so she finds a sperm donor, but during a drunken stupor, her best friend, a guy, ends up replacing the sample with his sperm. She gets pregnant, has the kid and 7 years later, he begins to suspect that it's his. How does he tell her? Stars Jennifer Aniston and Jason Bateman. Not a rip-roaringly funny comedy, and it's fairly standard fare but it's not bad either. Setting up a situation where the sperm sample is replaced must have been hard to figure out, but it mostly works eventhough it's contrived.

Collaborator -- Actor Martin Donovan makes his directorial debut with this film, the best part of which is an absolutely incredible performance by David Morse, a character actor usually relegated to playing military types or police officers. Here, he's a 50 year-old man who never moved out of home, except for a stint or two in jail. He robs a liquor store, goes a little unhinged, and ends up taking his next door neighbor's son (who he's known since school) hostage. What follows is gripping, dramatic, and often darkly comedic.

The principal problem with the film is Donovan's performance; it seems clear that he needs someone else to bounce ideas off here, because he can't direct himself. For most of the movie he's rather wooden, and that's a shame, because the script is solid and the direction of the other actors just fine. Other minor problems are indicative of a first-time filmmaker; the film spends a lot of time cutting to bits with the Donovan and Morse's parents outside of the house during the crisis, which often distract from the thrust of the movie. They're good scenes on their own, but a more experienced director would have probably left them for the DVD. Lastly, the movie relies on news broadcasts, both for exposition and as a plot device. This is fine, except that most of these broadcasts feel just a bit off, not quite what you'd actually find on TV (TMZ-style footage of Donovan kissking Olivia Wilde that is played during the crisis doesn't feel at all like something a producer would okay). This is a problem not unique to this movie, of course.

On home video, though, this one is definitely worth seeing -- for David Morse alone.

A comedy-drama hybrid (not a dramedy) from Lebanese actor-writer-director-producer Nadine Labaki (an impressive number of hats for a woman to wear in any film industry, let alone while working in the Middle East) that won the audience award at TIFF last year. It's kind of an awkward construct: it begins and ends largely as farce, but there's some really heavy stuff dropped in here that isn't remotely funny, and interacts with the light comedy rather jarringly (though the dramatic scenes work on their own). The cast is huge, and, combined with the subtitles, you never really learn most of the characters' names, apart from Labaki's own character (the sexy widow/cafe owner). Interesting and alternately funny and moving (there's a particularly funny musical bit of all the women in the village preparing to drug all the men with hashish-laced food), but never feels consistent.

I've been wanting to see this film ever since Streep won the award for best actress. I was happy for her, and I knew in the roles she is in that one of these days they would finally accept that award (At least in my lifetime, I don't remember her first one). However, is it just me or does she play the same character in pretty much all her movies. What I saw here is basically Julia Childs from Julie and Julia. Maybe that's why I consider a movie like The River Wild one of her more underrated efforts. She's not trying to steal scenery in that film like she is in other films and she blends with the rest of the cast quite well.

That brings me to Iron Lady and why it get's a C-. The story/narrative was a mess and I don't think the flashbacks did Margaret Thatcher justice. I don't know much about her, but I do know she was a pivotal woman in Great Britain history, so to have the foundation of her health in later years carry the film, I almost found that demeaning. Also, because of the flashbacks, the story was all over the place and the characters lacked any flesh to them.

I sound like this film get's an F, but here is were the C- comes in. I loved Streep's performance. While she steals the scenery (And again, it's like Julia Childs) when we see her as Thatcher in the position of power, she controls the film. The award was very deserving and she single-handedly saved the film from everything else.

The Island of Lost Souls -- Bela Lugosi might be the more recognizable name in the credits to horror fans, but it's clearly Charles Laughton's interpretation of Dr. Moreau that does the heavy lifting here. More thoughtlessly acted and directed, he'd be laughing his evil head off, but here sometimes the most terrifying things are rendered in all but a whisper. The make-up is superb, too, nearly as good as anything being done eighty years later. If there are flaws, it's the lead and his fiance, who aren't very interesting next to the two sinister doctors on the island or the two drunken sea captains that take them there. I'm by no means an expert on the subject, but this is often considered the best non-Universal horror film from the period, and I suspect that's correct.